"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2676, 28 June 1905, Page 67

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially -written for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

WALMER CASTLE.

Walmer Castle, situated between the historic fortresses of Deal and Dover, and -which has been occupied by the Lord Wardens when in residence, has, since the departure of Lord and Lady Curzon, been condemned as a place of abode. The illness of Lady Curzon and the typhoid •which broke out in^he household) during lord and Lady Curzon's residence caused "the King to have an inquiry, he himself paying a surprise visit with that purpose, the result being that as a place of abods Walmer Castle will cease to exist. The office of Lord Warden has been but an honorary post for many years, the right •f residence being the only material benefit ; and now that the King has appointed the Prince of. Wales to the wardenship, tho light of residence is to be waived, and j the old pile is to, be added] to the list of j England's show places entirely devoted to j %ha public, enshrining, as it does, the I Wellington relics, and endeared to the I nation as the scene oi Queen Victorias \ Jjoneynioon. ' Th^ castle, with its neighbouring strongholds Deal and Sandown Castles, was built by the bluff King Hifl. AH that AVw rejnains of the latter is a pile of cement and stones — all that has been able to resist the sea, whicli encroaches at this point ; but 18. the case of the two former the sea. ha<3 adopted a different treatment, washing upa huge barrier of shingle, which mpderii enterprise has turned into a causeway on which one can walk tinder the old and onco frowning fortresses their hard, original outlines now softened by a thick garment of evergreen ivy, .with the old old .guns looking blindly over the sea. The old moat surrounding the castle is now a garden, and where the silent w.aters •were, which gave the impression of \mJcnown depth, and added an extra obstacle to tho unlawful intruder, peaceful lawns . spread and flowers blossom, the stone •walls hidden by creepers', and the modern •visitor approaching from the green uplands comes upon the cultivated beauties of Nature, and standing upon the ramparts of the castle look out over the peaceful channel to the snores .of France shining in the distance, between which and the white cliffs of Dover go up and down the ships that are /bound for sea and those returning ; •while nearer are the "white-winged" yachts, and. creeping along by.the shore is a little boat "manned" by a girT. her red jersey inatehins th& three red sails of /he small craft. Breaking into the silence comes the sound of the Bugle March of the band of Volunteers: a corps of artists on a visit from London -to the garrison town ; the led coats "of strolling cadets contrast with the grey uniforms of the Volunteers against the blue of the. -sea. -

A guidie conducts the visitor through tne castle, entering through the great l>arreddoor approached by what was once a drawbridge ; the door opens into a stone courtyard 1 , and thence to the castle itself through, the circular corridor, pannelled in oak, from which the chief apartments open. The corridors are wide and gleomy, and need the roaring fires which burn in the huge grates during winter residence; The rooms are quaint, pannelled like the corri3ors ; they are uneven in shape, some being semicircular of necessity, running •with the round outside walls, which have been cut here and there for windows, the thickness of the walls forming a bay at least 12ft de^p. Wellington's, ream has a window of this description, which, opens to tho ramparts, where stands a gun taken from Napoleon. From this window is a magnificent view of the channel, over which. the ereat Duke could keep watch.

Wellington's rcom was in reality a relic of his eight years' camp life of "-he Peninsula wars. His camp bedstead brt-n.gli.fc from his tent stands as it was when he slept -upon it until the day he died, audi the chair standing-beslde his bed in which He actually did die, and in which? *when lie was over 80 years old, he used to sifc and read, and hold a candle close to the book -so the better to see. While reading he mould often -go to sleep and drop tJie «andle, which his servant watching fx-o-ia the door would rescue, andi save him from "being set on fire 1 . There is, besides Jiis camp bed and chair, a washstand built into a recess, the doors of which beine; closed las the appearance of a dnor leading into another room. Several tables and chairs complete the simple apartment, with the priceless relics of the soldier which were about him,' reminders of the battles he hadi fought in other days, and which, as he sat beside the fire on winter nights with the cannons of the storm about him, he must have fought over again many times. A story told of the Duke while he was in residence as Lord Warden shows thai tenacity of discipline which was characteristic of liim. It chanced that the regiment in which Lis son, tbe Mai-quis Douro, was a junior officer took up its quarters at the neighbouring garrison town of Dover. All the officers, in accordance with, mi'itary etiquette, called at Walmer upon the Duke, the commaader-in-chief, except liis son. who traded upon his relationship and omitted etiquette. A day or so after an invitation to dinner at Walmer reached the Colonel- for himself and his officers, with the name of the Marquis omitted. The pointedness of the omission aroused the Marquis to write to his father for an explanation, •which duly arrived in the ©uke's laconic style:" "P. M. (Field Marshal).— The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to the Marquis Douro, and begs to inform Mm that the reason why he was not invited to Walmer •was that he Had not called."

Queen Victoria's apartments are among thQ largest ia tb.fi pastle, which, with the

exception of the dining and drawing rooms, are not really large according to the idea of castle rooms. In her bedroom still remains the bed on which she slept, and the other bedroom furniture, but, denuded of carpets and hangings and all ornamentation and personal effects, the rooms loo* deserted and dreary, and without imagination it would be difficult to conjure their appearance when the happy Royal bride and bridegroom first occupied them. In the sitting room is Queen Victoria's chair and the round table at which she dined, and sitting in the chair which had been so often the seat of her Majesty ot beloved memory, Longfellow's words recur .-

Art is long, and life is fleeting for the work of man's hands is still in good preservation, while the individualities which gave meaning to inanimate things have passed away. The Prince Consort's room was a gloomy room overlooking the garden, of course denuded of all its- appointments except the bare furniture, which has much value in the eves of the nation owing to its association. The honeymoon visit was not the only visit the Royal pair paid to Walmer. When Queen Victoria was a young mother she several times withdrew with her children from the busy haunts of men, and enjoyed the seclusion and the delicious air of the sea. The rooms sacred to Nelson and Pitt are both on view, with traces ol the habits of these distinguished men. Those lately occupied by Lord and Lady Curzon were in the more modern portion of the castle-, with wixte windows overlooking both garden and sea, and magnificent views of Thanet and Kent. Bub, however delightful the situation, these old castles are haunted ground, haunted by association-; and in the shadows and silence of the night how easy to hear in the moaning of the sea and sighing of the wind imaginary voices and ghostly footsteps in the wide, deserted corridors. The garden, old as the castle in association, linlike the building made with hands, renews ite youth with every spring, and there are the group of sycamores in the grounds which owe their location to Pitt, budding into fresh vigour long after Pitt has left the scene; and here, too, is a weeping willow on the lawn, the cutting oi which was brought to Wellington from Napole-on's grave on that lonely island and far-off tomb in mid-Atlantic, where the restless spirit of the great captain fought against inexorable fate, and spent itself in an inactivity that must have been torture to the man who had kept continents ablaze and their armies in unceasing motion for years. There is something intensely human and pathetic in the idea of the old warrior Wellington tending this willow slip from the tomb of his as great, though defeated, enemy. Following Wellington's footsteps, one walks over the uplands yellow with cowslips and primroses, intersected with white daisy paitob.es, and reach old Walmer Church, a tiny edifice of Norman architecture, tucked away in a dell among the trets — hidden from the passer-by, deserted by modern activity and life, and dedicated, like the inscriptions on the stones of its surrounding crraveyard, to "sa-cred memory." I came upon this relic of-^the past in tbs golden sunlight of a spring afternoon, and the^_ graves blossomed with flowers. Nature's eternal resurrection had renewed the life of every tree and branch and blade of grass, and round the- tombstones, from which time had obliterated name and date, daisies looked with newlyopened eyes with, a child"s wonder at the sky. And, stretching protecting arms over many graves was a great yew tree 1800 years old, and from which Richard Coeur de Lion cut a bow from prior to his departure to the Holy Land. A man with a rather fine face, who was working among the graves, came forward and offered' his guidance. Y<»s, be could point out the oldest inscription on a gravestone legible. The grey stone was just opposite the eld Norman porch.

"Here lieth ye body of John Basset, one of the gunners of his Maystie, Castle of Walmer, who departed this life October 24, 1680." His Majesty -would be Charles

The most •pathetic mornißient is to three brothers, whose birthplace was Walmer, and' who, in service of their country, died far apart. One killed in Punjab, India, one in the defence of Ladysmith, and one died in Egypt. "Now show me the most recent grave?" I asked.

"It is of the old sexton," replied, "who died aged .78, and was buried this moming. His father was sexton before him, and died an old man also. Here is the vault."

Six feet deep a mason was busy with the trowel walling in the newly-opened) vault.

"It is a splendid vault," said the new sexton, "and father and son and grandfather, with their wiv.es, are buried there." And one thought bow "homely" that^grave must be ta the nien whose business it had been all the days of their working life, and their fathers, working days bafore them, to dig and tend the surrounding graves of the friends who had lested before them.

In the church the pew of the Duke of Wellington vras shown, where he, like an English gentleman of the old school, ra'lgiously attended, and where he had to be awakened when the service was over. The great' soldier sleeps his last, sleep in a magnificent tomb under the glorious dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, in close proximity to his contemporary, Nelson. Hard by is the pondei'ous oar cast entirely from the guns Wellington Had taken in his wars. It took 16 great cart horses to draw this splendid ornamental funeral car through London from the old hall at Chelsea Hospital, where the body had lain in. state.